[RE-wrenches] apollo charge controllers

[Darryl Thayer]

To all 
The cloest thing IMO to the holy  grail is the outback FNDC which has a lot of features, and I think the next generation will do more of what we want.  The advantage is it can monitor apparent state of charge and control off this monitoring.  The control is limited but it is a step in the right direction.  The thing to note is the charge controller has limits to what it can do if the inverter is also trying to control the state of charge. this is of paticular concern in grid tie where the grid experiances frequent outages.  (end of the line problems) 
Darryl

--- On Thu, 3/18/10, Mick Abraham <mick at abrahamsolar.com> wrote:


From: Mick Abraham <mick at abrahamsolar.com>
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] apollo charge controllers
To: "RE-wrenches" <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Date: Thursday, March 18, 2010, 7:33 AM



The function described by Todd was not present when I last evaluated the Apollo unit...and that would represent a major upgrade. Apollo's amp hour meter is much like the TriMetric...and I believe they have even licensed the original technology. The Apollo/Tri-Metric also cannot automatically calculate the battery efficiency...another major item on my wish list for high end battery monitors.  
 
The Blue Sky i series does integrate the ah meter and the charge controller logic better than anything I've seen but it can't buck down the voltage over as wide a range compared to the Apollo or other big MPPT controllers ...smaller amperage rating, too. Blue Sky i series does automatically calculate battery efficiency, however. 
 
All in all, the holy grail for the "every desirable feature" charge control integrated with "optimum" battery monitoring is still over the horizon. It's a terrific concept which makes the unobtainium all the more disappointing.

Mick Abraham, Proprietor
www.abrahamsolar.com

Voice: 970-731-4675



On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 12:00 AM, <toddcory at finestplanet.com> wrote:

So do the charge controller and amp hour meter communicate so they agree on when the batteries are fully charged?

Todd 






On Wednesday, March 17, 2010 12:02pm, "R Ray Walters" <ray at solarray.com> said:

We have a couple out in the field. A bit of hassle to upgrade the firmware at first, but Apollo was very helpful, and sent us a free interface to do the update. 
I'm sure that's all cleared up for current versions, by now.

Now a couple of years later, we've had zero trouble, and we are running well over 70 amps continuous.
The wireless Trimetric meter option is a pretty good reason to use Apollo for off grid projects, too.



R. Walters
ray at solarray.com
Solar Engineer







On Mar 16, 2010, at 6:14 PM, Nick Vida wrote:




wondering if any wrenches have any opinions on the Apollo charge controllers T80 in particular.

I heard they had some technical issues not to long ago- is that resolved?


thanks,


nick
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